


Fallout

by cecilantro



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-17 00:44:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14822007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: Spoilers for C2E21, set during the rest at the end of the episode.





	Fallout

**Author's Note:**

> i love Cali so much yall

Calianna’s eyes catch Caleb in the low light, crouched in an alcove leaning up against the wall, looking into the void and seeing nothing.   
“Mister Caleb.” She calls to him, quietly, and he twitches up toward her, only just able to see the glint of the distant light on the scales of her draconic arm as she wiggles those fingers in farewell. He’s glad that he can’t see her expression, she has been endlessly positive and he understands that he was in the right, she understands that too. And she’ll blame herself, partially, for the way his friends are treating him, but she’s said all she can and she  _ needs to go _ . She climbs, carefully, up the rope, and he watches her from the corner of his vision until she leaves, then gives up on his perception and clutches, instead, at the wax candle in his hands.   
He doesn’t want to move, but he wants the light, he doesn’t have the control or a tinderbox so he sits in the dark.   
He can hear the others setting up their camp on the other side of the cavern, getting ready, and he sits alone in the dark.   
He’s so determined that he was doing the right thing. He starts to doubt it, he remembers how angry Beau had been, remembers Jester’s scandalised tones and he hurts. He remembers their disgust.   
They won’t forgive him for this. Reprimanded him, talked about him like he was a child. Like he was something to be trained. And he’s grateful, so grateful, to Cali, for standing up for him, nervous though she was. Without her, he thinks that he may have fled in the night. Why should he stay when they so obviously hate him so? Fjord had been so silent, when he’d looked at him, and Fjord is the one who would usually step in on Caleb’s side here. But Fjord had refused to look at him, and that hurts and twinges, too.   
Developing feelings, he thinks, was not a good choice. Admittedly, not a choice, but he thought he’d be staying with them and, well, what’s the harm in admonishing himself for things he can’t control when it’s going to stick around? It had been so long since Caleb had allowed himself the indulgence of romance, and the last time hadn’t exactly ended well.   
This thought draws out a rough, bitter chuckle. He clamps one hand, quickly, across his mouth in the shock of the noise, and the laugh carries through the chamber. The group goes silent for a moment, and then the conversation picks back up.   
One-by-one, the voices fade, and Nott comes around to curl up near him. She comes toward him and watches him flinch, candle still clutched in his hand, and nods.   
“I’ll be just here.”   
She curls into the next alcove and falls to sleep, and the camp becomes quiet.   
An hour passes. Two. Three. The watch changes, there’s some muttering, and Caleb is still pressed into the rough wall with the candle clutched to his chest. Alone. He listens and watches and doesn’t dare to sleep.   
And then there’s a silhouette coming toward him, and he can’t make out the shape through the tears he hadn’t realised were there but his ears are working just fine, and that’s a footstep he knows.   
Mollymauk crouches in front of him, and tilts his chin up.   
“Caleb? Y’alright?”   
And Mollymauk. Caleb is painfully grateful to him, the only one of the Nein to state that he  _ agrees _ , and Molly can never understand how much that means.    
_ “I’m with him on this one,” _ too quiet to throw Beau off of her tirade but there regardless, and still, Caleb can’t reply to him.   
Molly’s fingers move from Caleb’s chin, down, he traces along Caleb’s arms to his hands, to the candle.   
“Do you want me to light this?”   
Caleb swallows, a couple of times as he tries to find his speech, and Molly gives almost a laugh, a hard breath,   
“It’s alright, Caleb, you don’t have to speak. You can just nod, I can see in the dark.”   
So Caleb nods, and Molly shifts to sit next to him instead, digging around in his pockets until he finds his tinderbox, and knocks, softly, the backs of his knuckles to Caleb’s.   
“Here.” Molly says quietly, and Caleb shifts, jerkily, to hand the candle over and watches, watches as sparks fly between Molly’s fingers and they illuminate his face with each bright flash. There’s a determination and a softness, and Caleb wants to lean in to him, but also wants to isolate himself. Because how can he stay?   
The candle lights, and Molly goes to hand it back to Caleb, is shocked when Caleb lays his hands over Molly’s.   
He doesn’t look into Molly’s face, now that his attention is on the wizard, keeps his eyes deliberately low. Molly looks at him with surprise, because aside from looking through Frumpkin’s eyes, physical contact isn’t something that Caleb deliberately seeks out.   
“Caleb? Love? Are you okay?”   
Caleb shakes, physically vibrates, and shakes his head, too. He leans in to Molly, and finds an arm around his shoulders and that’s Caleb lost.   
“I thought-” Caleb chokes out through tears, “I thought that I could, begin to  _ trust _ , I thought-”   
“Sh-sh-shh.” Molly soothes, and kisses his forehead,   
“I was so happy that I had found, the patience, I do not want to lose-”   
“You were right, Caleb, and they know it. Inside, they know it.”   
“Molly.” And that’s the last coherent thing Caleb manages, Molly throws the candle aside to bundle him up and in as he breaks down completely.   
He doesn’t have to be quiet, now, the only one awake- according to Molly- is Yasha, and he knows that she won’t judge or pry.    
Molly pulls and tilts and coaxes Caleb into lying on the hard stone floor, bedrolls too far to get to, but Molly’s slept on worse. And Caleb lies on  _ him _ , head on his chest and sobs and hiccups as Molly strokes his arm, strokes his hair, strokes all that he can reach until Caleb, essentially, passes out. Cries himself straight to sleep on Molly’s chest, and Molly can’t reach to kiss him again, so he kisses two fingers and presses those to Caleb’s temple, then tilts his own head back against the stone. His eyes close and he tightens his grip on the wizard. There will be fallout, in the morning, to clean up. And all that he can think of is kissing Caleb, the only thing his mind supplies him with as an answer, because the Gods only know that he doesn’t know how to fix Caleb. And he wants to fix him, so badly, but it’s just not that easy.   
This whirls, back and forth, in his mind, as he slips into an uneasy sleep.

 

Beau pokes him awake with her toe the next morning, holding the candle that Molly had thrown the night before, now re-lit.   
Molly, instinctively, curls around Caleb just a little tighter, and Beau rolls her eyes as she crouches, affixes the candle to the floor with the soft, dripping wax.   
“I’m not gonna punch him to fuck in his sleep, Molly, don’t shit yourself.” Her voice is low, and Molly’s grip doesn’t loosen.   
“He thought that you cared, you know? Bit of a mistake, I suppose.”   
Beau’s distant, disgruntled expression becomes angry. Terrifyingly so.   
“ _ I do care _ .” Beau hisses, and then bites her own tongue at the admission. Already caught, she decides to fuck it all, “Look.”   
“I am.” Molly snaps back, and she knees him.   
“I don’t understand him, a lot of the time, and I sure as fuck don’t think that he’s right. I think he’s megalomaniacal, and I don’t think he got to grow up right, but I don’t think he’s a bad person and I do care about him.”   
The anger turns something like soft. Like a smile. She reaches out, careful, and brushes a strand of Caleb’s hair back from his face. Molly flinches. Beau pulls back, looking almost hurt.   
“You love him?” She directs at Molly, who doesn’t reply, just stares with only the slightest hint of shock to his expression. She stands at his silence.   
“You’re not so self-centred to think you’re the only one, right, Molly? Not even you could be  _ that _ obnoxious.”   
Molly watches her leave, and when she’s around the corner, he gently shakes Caleb awake. Keeps a firm arm around him as he comes to, as close as he can get, and Caleb still panics. Why wouldn’t he? Unused to waking up to warmth and affection, he struggles and sits up and Molly releases him without fighting, sits up with him and talks nonsense until Caleb’s head clears.   
“M-Mollymauk, you, ah- the floor, did I fall asleep on you? I’m sorry.”   
Molly leans over and sets a hand to Caleb’s arm.   
“It was my choice, not yours, don’t worry. How are you?”   
Caleb is silent, for a long few moments. Too long.   
Molly scuffles closer and puts an arm around his shoulders, smiles when Caleb leans in to him.   
“I’ll fix this.” Molly says, without realising he’s speaking, and Caleb shakes his head,   
“I don’t think that you can.”   
“I’ll bloody try.” Molly says, just as firmly, “Caleb, would you look at me a moment?”   
Caleb does, obeys, actually manages to meet Molly’s eyes, as uncomfortable as it is.   
“I’ll do my damn best to fix this. To make you happy again.”   
“I don’t remember the last time I was happy.” Caleb says, quietly, and Molly lifts a hand to his cheek, brushing ever so lightly.    
“Can I try and fix that?” Molly asks, he doesn’t need to speak on, Caleb can infer. And he struggles for a second.   
“You can try.”   
Molly presses in and kisses him, finally, everything soft and warm that he could never make into words, and Caleb presses back.   
They’re drawn in, wound up, and the fallout can wait.   
This is all that matters.


End file.
